Most chord diagrams on this site specify information about the notes and intervals being played, and leave out information about which fingers to use. This is partly because chords should be learned along with their intervals, rather than as an occult collection of featureless dots; and also because there tend to be a variety of fingering options for any chord shape, which often bear some explanation.
So chord fingerings are described in text using notation like this: x4312x.
The six symbols represent the six strings of the guitar from lowest pitch to highest, left to right, and indicate the finger used to fret each string, an “x” indicating the string is muted, or a “0” indicating the string is played open.
- Finger 1 is the index finger,
- 2 is the middle finger,
- 3 is the ring finger,
- 4 is the little finger,
- and T is the thumb.
The notation is intuitive if we imagine it placed over a vertically oriented chord diagram, lined up with the strings. Like this:
